Everything was neat, tidy, and prosperous looking. She had nothing to complain about.

  The bell rang for dinner, so Giselle returned to the hall, where a second table had been set up and the places laid with cloths, spoons, and wooden trenchers. She settled into father’s high-backed chair with its feather pillow. Eleanor took her seat at her side and was about to clap in order to get the servants moving with the service, but Giselle beat her to it, and earned a sour look for her audacity.

  Dinner was good, though not sumptuous. There were no raisins, imported from Portugal, or figs made into luscious puddings, or any of the marvelous sauces of garlic and mustard and vinegar that the earl’s cook was so skilled at preparing. But it was plentiful and satisfying: a mussel soup which was very salty, followed a vegetable pie, and baked doves glazed with a honey gravy, with lots of white bread, and a sweet bun covered in honey to top things off — quite a bit for the assistant cook and his helper to put together by themselves. Giselle, who had skipped breakfast in her haste to make her inspection, was hungry and had to restrain herself from tearing in an unladylike way into each steaming dish, in stuffing herself unceremoniously with bread so that her cheeks bulged, or in mopping her trencher to get that last bit of sauce.

  She wiped off her knife, returned it to its little scabbard in her pouch, and leaned back in the chair for a moment to recover. She remained there, while Burghard and Osgar took down the second table. The ladies of a house often spent the hour or two after dinner in conversation in the hall or in sedentary chores like sewing and embroidery, but Giselle wasn’t having any of that. She was too eager to see the rest of Hafton. Giselle caught Osgar just before he went out and asked him to saddle a horse for her.

  The best part was not having to ask anyone’s permission.

  As Giselle approached the wide spot by the church occupied by the village well, she heard the clamor of voices and smelled the musty odor of sheep and the pungent aroma of dung and fresh hay. A fold had been set up in the commons, and it was full of sheep, their wool so thick and ready for shearing that they looked like barrels with legs.

  Giselle tied her horse to a fence post. She looked around, shielding her eyes from the sun, which was so hot that she had begun to sweat in her heavy gown. She wanted to talk to someone, to find out the village news and catch up on nine months of lost gossip. There were at least half a dozen villagers lounging in the shade of the trees lining the commons, but no one came up to her or called a greeting. They were at pains to pretend not to see her.

  Behind her there was the unmistakable snicker of sheeps’ hooves on the road. She turned to see a flock of about twenty jogging into the common, a boy leading them with the help of a dog. Wulfric Ploughman, the village reeve, was strolling along at the rear, a long staff on his shoulder.

  As the boy led the sheep into the pen, she awaited Wulfric, bouncing up and down on her toes and unable to contain a grin. It was good to see old Wulfric, steady as a rock Wulfric. She could remember sitting on his knees after church as a child, weaving necklaces of grass with his daughter Elwy, who was the same age as she was. At least Wulfric didn’t avoid her. He stopped at her side, spat on the road, and leaned on his staff. “Good afternoon, my lady.”

  Wulfric towered over her. He was so tall that he always seemed to slump over to bring his head closer to people when he was talking. He didn’t have to get down on a knee as he had once had to do, but it almost felt like it. Like many of the village people, he seemed thinner and went barefoot; his cheeks were sunken and there were great circles under his eyes. “Are you well, Wulfric?” she asked.

  “Well, enough,” he grunted. “Considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  He shuffled his feet, looked into the distance over the trees, and was some time in answering. Then he said, “There was a few died this winter and it’s been hard waiting for the harvest.”

  “What did they die of?”

  Again, there was a long pause. “The hunger.”

  Alarmed, Giselle asked, “There’s been a famine?”

  “Yea.” Wulfruc stroked his beard and spat again. “One of my granddaughters died of it.”

  “Oh, dear. Which one?”

  “Amanda.”

  Giselle remembered a fat little baby in a basket, a plaid coverlet across her middle, little fists waving, and a gurgling smile. She recalled the birth because the baby had come at the same time that Attebrook boy had gone to France. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Nothing you could do. Elwy’s milk dried up.”

  Poor Elwy. What a tragedy to lose a child. It struck her as odd, though, that there could have been a famine. The harvest last year had been good, same as at Shelburgh. Same as everywhere. The summers were long and the autumns warm, and the talk all round was how bountiful the harvests were. No one should be starving. “His lordship did nothing?”

  Wulfric shuffled his feet. “He’s the one what brought it on. Took over three eighths of the harvest and taxed every man, free and unfree, ten pence besides. There were a lot who couldn’t pay, so he took over their lands for the demesne.”

  Giselle was stunned — half the harvest taken. With that much grain confiscated it was no wonder people were hungry. They were probably fighting with the chickens in the dirt for the scattered grains that were left. She remembered that she hadn’t seen a single pig in the village when she had ridden through. It had been odd, all those empty sties and not a single sow on the road or at the edges of the woods, rooting around with an entourage of piglets. She hadn’t marked it at the time, but now she understood. They’d all been eaten. Now she thought of it, she hadn’t seen a single goat either.

  “Wulfric,” she said aghast.

  Wulfric sighed. “We thought it would just be hard times until the earl found you a husband. Now you’re one of them. It’ll never end.” He looked frightened. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not my place. You won’t let on that I’ve told, will you? That Eustace, he’ll set le Bec on me.”

  Giselle pressed her lips together. “I’d have found out anyway.” It was true. The signs were all there, the shabby clothes, the lean and hungry faces, people shoeless, the absence of goats and pigs, gardens well tended, demesne land less so. She had been too wrapped in her own misery before to see signs.

  “Yeah, well, you won’t let on?”

  She grasped his forearm, hurt that he thought she would betray him. “Wulfric! How long have I known you!”

  The anxiety eased on his face. “Ah, missy, you’re cut from the same cloth as your dad. But it’s too bad there’s nothing you can do, being just a wife.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Hafton

  June 1180

  It was still dark when Giselle woke up the next day. The night was so short this time of year that she felt she had not gotten any sleep at all. The smell of smoke from the kitchen and the sound of voices coming through the open window reminded her that people were already up and working.

  She threw off the blanket and rose to wash her face at the basin by the window. Angry shouting and cries of pain from the kitchen interrupted this ritual, but when she looked out a window with a dripping face to see what had caused it, no one was in sight in the yard except Osgar, who was on his way to the stables and seemed unconcerned at the hubbub.

  Giselle patted her face dry with the skirt of her nightgown, since Eanfled had forgotten to set out a towel the night before. The wind shifted, bringing the aroma of the sheep in the fold which had been erected beyond the palisade. The sharp odor of manure was enough to make a person gag, but it reminded her that shearing was supposed to start today, and shearing was one of the best times of the year, after the harvest.

  She was about to call for Eanfled to help her get dressed when the maid stumped in, rubbing sleep from her eyes and carrying a candle. As Eanfled put the candle down on the table by the basin, the wind blew it out. “Damn,” Eanfled said.

  “No matter,” Giselle said. “We’ve no need to waste candles this time of day.” The sky had lightened to a dull gray. The sun would be up in half an hour. She turned to rummage in her trunk.

  Eanfled emptied the basin out the window, and Giselle heard Eleanor shouting at her from below in the yard.

  “Sorry, m’lady,” Eanfled called, flinching at the rebuke, and put the basin back down on the table with a hasty thump.

  “It’s all right. Don’t pay any attention to her,” Giselle said.

  “Of course, m’lady,” Eanfled said without conviction. “Will you wear the blue or the red today?”

  “The blue.”

  “Very good.”

  “Let’s hurry. Don’t bother with my hair. I’ll just tie it up. There aren’t any men around today worth impressing.”

  Eanfled grinned. “Right.”

  When she descended into the yard, Giselle gathered up her skirts against the dew that still clung to the few clumps of grass that survived the coming and going, and marched across to the kitchen, a round wooden building beside the house. The sun was almost up and there was pink light at the tops of the clouds.

  The kitchen had huge shutters all around it that were folded down to let out the heat from the cooking fires. The assistant cook, a pot bellied man who had not been here last summer, and his sole helper were hard at work. The boy was ladling dried green beans and peas from barrels into a big kettle over the fire. He had a bruise on his cheek and had been crying. The cook was occupied cutting up leeks. As Giselle came through the door, the cook scraped the leeks from his board into the pot and turned to line big baking pans with dough from an enormous wad in a tub.

  “Good morning,” Giselle said.

  “Morning, m’lady,” the cook and his boy responded.

  Just then Eleanor emerged from the pantry at the rear. The corners of her mouth plunged downward. She nodded and snapped, “G’morning. My lady.”

  “Making meat pies for dinner?” Giselle asked the cook.

  The cook swiped at a strand of lank black hair that had fallen across his face. “Yes, m’lady.”

  “How many have you planned?” Giselle asked.

  The cook’s eyes flicked to Eleanor. “I’ll have five going shortly.”

  Five, Giselle mulled. The trays were big: almost a foot across. More than enough for the household. “That’s more than we need.”

  “We are sending three to Harleigh,” Eleanor said.

  “His lordship likes my pies,” the cook said.

  “They must be fine pies,” Giselle said.

  She strolled through the kitchen, inspecting the contents of the barrels beside the tables. There were the three of beans and peas and one of offal and entrails, which was meant for the meat pies. She tapped the one with the entrails. “Where did this come from?”

  “We’ve slaughtered an old ewe,” the cook said.

  The carcass was not in view, but it would be hanging on one of the hooks under the eaves out of sight. It should have been on a spit or cut in pieces and boiling in a pot. “We won’t be having that today, I take it.”

  “Lady Eleanor says we will slow roast it for tomorrow.”

  It irked Giselle to hear Eleanor addressed as a lady. But she did not correct the cook.

  “You’ve a lot of dough there,” Giselle said. “It’s not all for bread, is it?” The dough for pies had to be made with less yeast so it wouldn’t rise as much as for bread.

  The cook’s lips curled with disgust. “The boy made too much. I’ll turn what we don’t use into biscuits.”

  Giselle fingered her lip in thought. “There must be enough for twenty pies.”

  “Yes,” cook said.

  “Well, then,” Giselle said. “We’ll just make twenty pies.”

  “Twenty!” Eleanor snapped.

  “Yes,” Giselle said. “Twenty.”

  The cook wrung his hands. “We’ll have to kill another sheep. The expense!”

  “Have it done,” Giselle said trying to make her voice sound haughty and commanding. “You,” she pointed to the cook’s boy. “Find a ewe and butcher her, if you please.” When the boy hesitated, she added, “Right now.”

  It was pleasant to see the stunned expressions on the faces of the cook and the boy, and to have the boy hurry to obey.

  “Twenty pies is a waste,” Eleanor said. “What are we going to do with twenty pies?”

  “We shall feed the laborers,” Giselle said. “They deserve a meal for their work.”

  “My lord left specific instructions. I’ve already arranged for bread and ale.”

  She had, had she? The only sign of activity at the ovens was baking rolls for breakfast and loaves for dinner and supper, enough for the household. So Eleanor was going to feed the laborers old bread. They would be sure to like that.

  “Then they will be pleased to get the pies as well,” Giselle said. “Don’t just stand there, master cook. Get the mutton you have cut up and boiling. It’s the quickest way to prepare it. I want the lot ready by dinner time.”

  “We can’t eat two sheep quickly enough to prevent them from spoiling,” Eleanor sputtered.

  “Give half to the laborers,” Giselle said from the doorway. “We’ll keep a quarter and send the rest to his lordship. I’m sure he’d sooner have mutton and gravy than meat pies.”

  Giselle crossed the yard to the chapel, satisfied with the way she had handled Eleanor. Firmness, that was the way.

  She caught Evrart the chaplain in the writing office whittling a stick. He should have been preparing to perform Prime, the first service of the day. He put the stick aside and stood up.

  “Don’t let me interrupt you,” she said.

  “Is something troubling you, my child?” he asked.

  “I want to see the accounts and the records of the manor court.”

  Evrart looked troubled and a little frightened. “There is no need,” he said. “They are all proper and in hand.”

  “I’ll decide if there’s a need, and I’ve already decided,” she said.

  The chaplain fumbled beneath his robes for a large iron key on a chain. The manor’s records were kept in a big trunk secured with an iron lock. Evrart opened the lid, which squeaked.

  “Needs a bit of oil,” he murmured. He stepped back, folded his hands, and made no effort to do anything further.

  Giselle had expected him to be more helpful than this. She was a bit puzzled why he seemed so cool and evasive.

  The trunk was full of rolled vellum sheets, each tied with a blue ribbon. “Which one has the most recent accounts, covering since last Michaelmas?” she asked.

  “That one,” the chaplain pointed to the topmost roll.

  “And the manor court?”

  “The one beneath it.”

  Giselle set them both on the table side by side, undid the ribbons, and set candlesticks on the ends to hold them open against their natural tendency to curl. The entries were in Latin, like just about everything in the world that was written down, except for correspondence. It was unusual for a girl to be taught Latin, but Evrart’s predecessor has schooled her enough that she could understand what she saw.

  She would have liked to have the chaplain’s help in deciphering the rolls, but he seemed tense. “You can go,” she said.

  “At your service, m’lady,” Evrart murmured and slid backward out the door, which he closed behind him.

  “At my service indeed,” Giselle muttered.

  Settling on a stool, she leaned over to study the accounts roll. Entries were all a-jumble, receipts were intermingled with expenses one after another. The single aid to telling them apart was the fact that amounts for income were in one column and payouts in a parallel one. As she scanned the entries, her mouth moving as she struggled to decipher the handwriting, patterns began to emerge. The number of fines had increased. From the look of things, there had been an outbreak of carnality: more than twenty fines for sex offenses in December alone, more than she could remember having occurred in two years of hanging around the fringes of the manor court. Also in December, there were two enormous tallages, general levies on the people, coming just two weeks apart, with a running account of how they were paid, almost all in grain. She nodded at the timing of it. Eustace had waited until all the threshing was done. People threshed their own grain with more enthusiasm than they did their lord’s.

  She cross referenced the fines against the entries on the roll of the manor court just to be sure she wasn’t misreading things, but the entries were there, along with dozens upon dozens of other fines: for fighting and housebreaking, and at least four fines for house hire after Eustace had rebuilt them following fires which had taken them all in the space of a week. It was odd that four houses should burn down all within a week. Only houses that had been paid for had burned, too. There was account after account of someone having lost land to the demesne. Wulfric had been right after all.

  Back into the accounts roll, she found that rents had gone up in the spring for everything, as well as fines for use of the forest. And references to other extraordinary fines popped up: for wool, for fish, for fodder. Fines like these were special ones levied for special expenses of the manor. Eustace must have been buying all sorts of things.

  The strange thing, though, as she scanned the record, was that there was no sign of the purchases. She wondered about that. After chewing her lip, she rummaged through the chaplain’s things for a waxed tablet and stylus.

  She began adding up all the income noted in the roll, which was written in Roman numbers, intending to match them to the expenses. The work was hard and absorbing. It seeme that she had hardly got started when Eanfled knocked on the door to announce dinner time — Giselle couldn’t remember having heard the bell.

  “I’ll eat here,” Giselle said, and Eanfled had returned with a pitcher of ale and a platter of steaming meat pie, mutton with gravy, and bread. With a pang of guilt, Giselle realized that she had not made sure that the cook and Eleanor had complied with her orders on feeding the laborers. Those two needed watching. The maid stood around gazing at the rolls on the table, but soon grew bored and left.

 

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